Particles with a size below 1 micron find a range of applications, including catalysis, low temperature sintering, solid rocket fuel, cold-gas spray coating, powder injection molding, magnetic carriers, metallic paint and conducting paste. Particles below 1 micron typically exhibit high reactivity and/or activity and can be used in many applications.
Conventional industrial production of micron/nanometer metal powders by reduction, decomposition and gas/water atomisation produce a wide size distribution from 2 microns to 500 micron and a range of particle morphology from spherical to irregular. The weight fraction of particles with size below 5 micron is usually below 7%, which constitutes a very low yield and therefore, such conventional processes are not economically viable for the large scale production of fine powder particles.
Further, it is difficult to produce such particles with controlled chemical composition in combination with controlled morphology, in particular, bi-. and multi-metal particles in that size range.